Managing Creativity for Marketing and Advertising Essay

Managing Creativity for Marketing and Advertising - Essay Example Beem (2010) reckons that if carefully prepared and properly executed, co-branding is one of the best strategies that can be used to penetrate markets, survive financial down times and even grow. Taking the strongest elements of one brand and combining these with the best complementary brands to create a new product can in fact lead to the potential worth of the new product being greater than that of the sum of the two products (synergy). Gap Clothing and Apple I-pod The two brands chosen for co-branding in this case are GAP - a popular brand from the apparel industry, and Apple - one of the most popular brands in the music/technology industry. To make the new product, GAP’s hoodies and Apple’s iPod will be combined to create clothing from GAP that encompasses Apple’s slogan and promotes the values that Apple stands for. The new product is to take advantage of the position of the two in their specific markets and further strengthen their image of being trendy and cool. Visual of the New Product: The Techno Hoodie The form of presentation of the co-branded product will be a techno hoodie. A hoodie is a sweatshirt characteristic of a hood and is regarded as the most important cultural product of the Western world in the 20th Century. McCartney (2008) contends that hoodies are the only commodity the current generation will be remembered with, and given the popularity of the hoodie; it is difficult to argue against this. It is urban apparel, often made of cotton or poly-blend and is usually in the form of a zipper-front or pullover (Kayne 2011). Hoodies are regarded as unique urban clothes, forming the fashion statements of many people. The new product will be a representative of a one-of–a-kind style and will bear screen-printed designs on its back as are popular with many people. The techno hoodie will come in two types: 1. A pullover hoodie, which will have one single, large pocket in the front 2. A zipped hoodie: which will have a zip per dividing the front and the pocket into two Instead of the usual material or poly-blend material strings, the drawstrings of the hoodies are going to be high-quality iPod headphones, a design that will be unique and trendy. The pockets will be designed to be holding the iPods among other things. The hoodies will be designed in different colors to match with the range of colors the iPod comes in. The designs on the hoodies will include the two logos; GAP and Apple written either as graffiti or just plain, alongside decorations regarded as cool including elements of anime and pop culture. Creation of a Brand Image Techno hoodies are the next-best-thing in the apparel market with a promise to be fashionable into the future. A combination of the high level of comfort, capacity to hold the iPod and an image of being cool and trendy and subscribing to pop culture results in a scenario in which techno hoodies are going to be massively popular into the future. â€Å"The market for this item should be huge as anyone who likes taking walks, working out, or most young adults will love these† (TEP 2011). Such reviews indicate that techno hoodies are not only a hit now but also what can be termed as â€Å"futuristic clothing†. Therefore the two brands will collaborate to make clothing that accommodates the vast music collection of the youth. GAP will provide the trendiest, top-notch